If you're playing the DX version, this is the ONLY way to get 100% completion, as one of the pictures needed for the picture book side-quest is of Link shoplifting. However, in order to get the true ending, you can't die once. Considering that you're likely to have to enter the shop at least once more if you try and shop lift at any point other then right near the end of the game, this means to get 100% completion AND the true ending it's advised the player waits until right near the end of the game before getting this shoplifting picture.

The Happy Mask Shop Keeper from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is also an example. He always has a grin on his face coupled with Eyes Always Shut, but if you don't have enough Rupees to pay back the mask you sold, he'll be extremely angry and the angry face alone can be Nightmare Fuel for some people. Luckily this is the only thing he will do if you are short on funds.

Perhaps more comical than Space Quest or Leisure Suit Larry, in Open Season a Korean woman shoots you, a LAPD homicide detective, in the face at point-blank range if you try to leave her convenience store without paying for an apple.

Stiffing the cabbie in Leisure Suit Larry will not only have him killed by the cabbie's fists, but his carcass run over by his cab. Evil doesn't even begin to describe this!

Police Quest: SWAT has an early mission where the team is called out to a Korean 7-11, after robbers enter and gunshots are heard. The mission can have the gunmen shooting the store owners or holding them hostage, or it can work the other way around with the store owners waving guns about, requiring an interpreter.

A variant of this occurs in the 1997 Blade Runner video game. If you pull out your weapon more than once in Bullet Bob's store, he'll One-Hit Kill your ass.

In Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge, Roger Wilco orders a whistle via mail required to solve a later puzzle. In both Space Quest III and Space Quest V, the owners of the mail-order company dispatch Terminator-like androids to collect the huge debt incurred from the interest or kill him (but mostly kill him). What's strange about this is that the whistle is advertised as being free (and that ordering it in the first place is optional!). In Space Quest IV trying to leave a software store without paying for an item will have the store's anti-shoplifting device fatally zap you. There's a change machine in the same game that will also defend itself with lethal force if you try and force it open.

In Déjŕ Vu, you may take one cab trip without paying the driver afterwards - try it again and he'll call the cops on you. Coupled with the murder rap you're trying to beat, it's ten to life for you. Taking a Ballistic Discount doesn't work either - it turns out that there's bulletproof glass between you and the cabbie, and he's even quicker about calling the cops on you if you test it. Perhaps you should try shoplifting from thegun shop owner instead...

Beat 'em Up

In the Streets of Rage fan remake, Blaze, of all people, pulls this trope if you dare to try to steal an unlockable without paying. If your computer clock is set between 6 AM and 7 AM, Blaze will be sleeping and you can attempt to steal one item. Regardless of if you manage to steal the item or not (its a coinflip), you will be banned access to the store at least until you complete the main game once. If you do manage to steal the item, Blaze will confiscate all the money you earn during the main game and won't open shop again for you until the debt is fully paid.

First-Person Shooter

If you break a shop window in Bioshock, the security system activates and sends machine-gun equipped helicopter robots to kill you. This comes across as an awfully extreme method of stopping shoplifters. Since the usual things you get from shop displays are inexpensive first-aid kits and EVE hypos, there's usually no reason to risk it.

You don't even have to actively break the window. If you have Electric Flesh equipped and you're attacked by a splicer when you happen to be lurking near a window, Disproportionate Retribution is in full effect.

If Booker in BioShock Infinite walks behind the counter in the Graveyard Shift bar, the bartender cocks a shotgun. If Booker takes something, almost everyone in the bar tries to kill him.

In Postal 2, one of the first tasks is to get milk from the store. If you take it and leave without paying, the owner will come after you with a gun. Of course, this being Postal, you can just shoot him. And of course, that's assuming you didn't already shoot him before even getting the milk. The game strongly implies that this is the preferred outcome: the objective is counted as complete as soon as you grab the milk without even hinting at actually paying for it. Plus, attempting to do so places you in ridiculously long queue filled with people custom-designed to irritate the player with their words and behaviour. That, and the shop owner is clearly a terrorist. Police response, on the other hand, is surprisingly measured. You can steal money from bank vault, or even loot a police station, but if you don't pull gun yourself, cops will not open fire on you. They will apply their batons on your back enthusiastically, though.

Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain: In the Arms Bazaar mission, taking anything from the chests in the market will blow your cover.

Pinball

In Pinball Quest, you can try to steal items from the Black Market Imps, but if you fail, you'll lose half of your gold as punishment.

Platformer

Pressing the attack key instead of the purchase key in Spelunky is a good way to be instantly killed by the shotgun-toting shopkeeper.

Spelunky shopkeepers get angry over quite a few offenses, and there's a fairly complex system to determine their response to you. Killing a shopkeeper at any time, for any reason, causes the rest to be hostile to you for the rest of the game. Any other crime merely increases your Wanted Meter, which goes down by one each floor (not that most players even realize this on account of being compelled to kill angry shopkeepers out of self-defense). Notably, for whatever reason, stealing from a shopkeeper who is already angry doesn't count as a crime, which can be exploited for consequence-free robbery. As if that wasn't bad enough, some shopkeepers will not be in their stores, but waiting for you at the level exit hoping to catch you.

Easily angered is right. You can literally get into trouble for something either A)Isn't your fault or B) something that happened to the store that was your fault but wasn't intended to be. The best case of this is the exploding frog in the jungle area. You hit one in inflates a while before exploding. Knock one down near a store and don't/can't get rid of it in time? You might as well have thrown a lit bomb for all the shotgun pellets you'll be facing.

In Thing Thing Arena 2, if provoked the shop keeper will wail away at you with a minigun. It is, however, possible to defeat him and he will drop limitless minigun ammo.

In Abyss Odyssey, dying soldiers you encounter will sometimes mention they were killed by the Shopkeeper after trying to steal from him. And indeed, the Shopkeeper is more than a match for most low-level characters. The fact that he works as a shopkeeper in the Abyss should have been a clue.

Point and Click

One of the puzzles in the online flash game Johnny Rocketfingers II is to figure out how to steal an item from a store without the shopkeeper blowing your head off. Fortunately, if you don't guess right, he gives you the chance to return what you stole before killing you, and only does so if you are an absolute idiot (i.e. "Don't move!" *do jumping jacks*).

Roguelike

NetHack's shopkeepers. The trope was formerly called Izchak's Wrath for a reason note Izchak is the only shopkeeper guaranteed to be in any playthrough.. They get indignant if the player tries to steal, trying to kill the player themselves or sending the police - which happen to be the Keystone Kops - after the player. The shopkeepers will also charge you for damaged or eaten merchandise. They tend to be well armed (with the occasional Wand of Death); the Keystone Kops would be predictably ineffective but for their overwhelming numbers. There's a delightful variety of complications: they're killable but that counts as murder for the non-chaotic, they can grab the character's backpack if they try to tunnel through the floor while standing too close, characters with uncontrolled teleportitis should be very careful indeed... On the other hand, a trained housepet can steal items and somehow avoid attracting any attention.

Any monster besides the player can steal from NetHack shops without penalty. Only a few 'greedy' monsters will actually do so. Drop all your gold in the shop (for store credit). Lead a greedy monster in (a dwarf will do), then back out. Kill them for your money, while keeping the store credit. Much more reliable than pets.

The black marketeer One Eyed Sam who appears in NetHack variants such as Slash EM and UnNetHack is even more aggressive about defending his stuff, and has several powerful guard-critters patrolling his store as well.

It's the same story in ADOM, except the cops summoned are generic thugs, and the shopkeeper himself is a tough enemy — and shopkeepers can throw gold pieces with bullet accuracy. Stealing from a shop (unless your familiar does it) causes a drop in alignment (shifting the player from lawful toward chaotic). The casino shop prevents you from teleporting out.

Shopkeepers in ADOM can also become hostile just because you have the unholy aura corruption ("Stop scaring away the customers!") By that time, it's fairly likely you can actually kill a shopkeeper, which is no mean feat. (Unless you got corrupted early on by unwisely playing with that powerful ancient scythe which just happened to be lying around the dungeon ... then you're screwed.)

In the Mystery Dungeon games, some very nasty dogs are sent after the player if they somehow get away with shoplifting.

In the Pokémon version, it's the Kecleon shopkeepers themselves that swarm the characters if you shoplift. Ironically, this is the only way to recruit one to your team. Said Kecleon also have a recruit rate of negative 33.9%, thus to even have the tiniest chance of recruiting them you need to be at least Level 90 if not 100, the level cap, due to the fact that the recruitment rates are highest at those levels, and be equipped with the Friend Bow. Even with the bonuses, the chance is 0.1%, as the highest bonus to recruit rate you can achieve is 34%. In every game, the Kecleon are close to the level cap, and from Explorers onward, possess stats so high that your Pokemon won't stand a chance even at the level cap if you haven't used tons of stat boosting items. In Gates To Infinity, they've wised up further and will spawn around the staircase, giving anyone who tries to escape with a Pure Seed a nasty surprise. Also you can't defeat them.

In Final Fantasy Fables, lifting a "super-rare" item will cause the shopkeep — *ahem* Dungeon Hero X to attack you. He moves twice a turn, knocks Chocobo into the far wall if he attacks, and has the "Mog Beam X", which always does 777 damage. You can try to escape the room instead to keep the item, but if you aren't quick, he freaking teleports on top of the stairs. However, this is the only way to get the Thief's memories.

Shiren the Wanderer has a rather elaborate system to prevent shoplifting. First, upon picking up any item, the shopkeeper blocks the only exit until the player pays. If the player tries to attack the shopkeeper, he moves at double speed to eviscerate the player with powers rivaling the final boss. Finally, if the player manages to paralyse or otherwise subdue the shopkeeper, upon leaving the store the game will declare "Thief!" and then sic double-speed Guard Dogs and incredibly powerful Sheriffs on you until you somehow manage to leave the town or dungeon floor. To add insult to injury, if you actually are able to kill any of these creatures, you gain neither experience nor items. Small wonder the stats screen has entries for both times you stole items and times you successfully stole items.

In Torneko, if you get something and leave the room without paying, or attack the gargoyle shopkeeper, many other gargoyles will come after you. And they're quick and kill you with a single blow.

All of The Elder Scrolls games have this as a gameplay mechanic. It is possible to steal from a store without getting caught. If you DO get caught, the shopkeeper and any guards in the place will run to attack you. Notably, in Morrowind and Oblivion, you can be attacked for accidentally picking up random, nearly-worthless items that happen to be lying around and owned by the shopkeeper.

Made worse by the fact that "Pickup object" and "Talk to shopkeeper" use the same key. When they put the shopkeeper behind a counter cluttered with towering knick-knacks, it's just asking for trouble.

Even if you were unobserved, the shopkeepers would realize it if you tried to sell them back an item you stole from them. Sounds reasonable, but the AI only remembers which type of item you stole, not the exact item. If you ever stole a soul gem from a merchant, expect the merchant to scream "THIEF!" if you ever sell them a soul stone. Even if you got rid of the stolen soul stone hours ago and tried to sell him one you picked up in dungeon, he'll still claim it's his soul stone.

Not only that, but that merchant's entire faction will somehow know that you once stole that type of item from one of their members, or from a supply closet in a guild hall. Tempted to grab some alchemical ingredients from a Mage's Guild barrel? Even if you pick more in the wild, you won't be able to sell it to any Mage's Guild alchemist without being swarmed by angry wizards.

Even worse in Oblivion due to the physics. It's easy to accidentally knock something off a table while walking around the shop. There's a button which lets you lift an item and move it around, without placing it in your inventory. Naturally, this lead to many players trying to put the displaced object back where it belongs... only to be arrested for theft. It's to keep the player from moving the merchandise off the shelves to the entrance of the store and mashing the pick up item button then making a quick getaway. And not even that works since you can easily just punch items into dark corners out of the shopkeepers line-of-sight.

Averted, though, in that you are very unlikely to do the "and die" bit unless it's right at the beginning of the game.

Played straight in Skyrim, but because so many people got arrested for accidentally picking up a bowl when they meant to talk to the shopkeeper, shops and inns in Skyrim decided to move items away from in front of them, so the player won't accidentally steal something if they bump the mouse or analog stick. Of course, you couldjust put a bucket over their heads and rob them blind. On the other hand, if you steal from the shopkeeper (or anyone, for that matter) they'll figure out who the thief was and send either a gang of hired thugs or assassins after you.

It's also implied by shopkeepers that they will kill you for trying to rob them by the fact that multiple shopkeepers will have a dagger behing their counter, even if they don't sell weapons.

Fortunately, if you do accidentally steal something...you can easily just bribe the guards (If you're in the Thieves Guild) or tell them that you're a Thane of the city (If you have completed a side-quest in the specific hold you're in) do either of these, and they just let you off, and they don't even take your loot!

This applies even if they've never met you and were asleep when you stole it. Somehow, some way they know it's you and have the funds and means to send assassins after you even if they're the local hobo. It appears the common folk have inherited the guard's psychic powers.

NPC's will even send hit squads after you for stealing their stuff even if you killed them BEFORE stealing it.

This trope gets taken to ridiculous levels in some cases. For example, you can pickpocket a Forsworn Briarheart and take his briarheart - aka the thing sitting in place of his heart keeping him alive. If you take it, he dies immediately, since you basically just ripped his heart out of his chest. That still won't stop him from sending thugs after you to teach you a lesson, apparently from beyond the grave.

In Might and Magic VII a character with the Stealing Skill can try to lift an item from a store (except a Magic Guild) without paying for it. Failing to do so won't get you attacked, but even trying (whether you are successful or not) will lower your reputation, and require you to pay a fine in the town where you shoplifted. (For some odd reason, a successful act of theft incurs a bigger fine than one where you fail and get caught.) The craziest part is, the fine you have to pay for shoplifting is in most cases more than the one you have to pay for killing a peasant. (Meaning they consider stealing worse than murder.)

In the Dink Smallwood comedic RPG, you could not only drink without paying, but menace the shopkeeper with death. He then called two city guards. It was a good way to make money.

In the game Fable, you can get away with various crimes if you're not seen, but if you're caught in the act you'll be attacked by the guards. Once your guile level is high enough, you can attempt to steal items from shops. Getting caught sets the guards on you. This almost counts as a Useless Useful Skill: by the time you're leveled high enough, the stuff you can steal usually isn't worth the effort.

In EarthBound, taking eggs and bananas from the Happy Happy Village's food stand without paying causes the Unassuming Local Guy watching over it to attack. However, said Local Guy is weak and easy to defeat and doesn't attack again if you beat him. In fact, the fight can be completely avoided if you simply choose not to talk to him.

"You won this confrontation. But the good side of you must ache with regret. Ha ha ha."

In Quest for Glory I the Kleptomaniac Hero can easily steal potions from Healer with no immediate consequences. Very tempting, considering how poor he is at the start, and that she is the only easy target. However, when the hero leaves and comes back, she calls him a thief and refuses to open the door. If this happens before she makes Dryad's potion, the main quest cannot be completed. Otherwise the game becomes much harder without a place to sell components and buy potions cheaply.

In Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide, an NPC has a device that allows you to recharge magic items. If you use the device and try to leave without paying for it, he turns you into a penguin. And magically seals the door so you can't leave.

In Ultima IV, underpaying a blind shopkeeper is not penalized physically, only causing you to lose ranks in the important Honesty virtue. Clever players can pay 1 coin for a huge pile of expensive items, and then regain Honesty by purchasing cheap items at full price.

In Ultima VIII, any sort of theft or other misdemeanor you committed in the city would lead to you getting blown up by the (almost) invincible town sorcerer. It is possible to shoplift, e.g. from the blacksmith, but only by waiting or sleeping out of sight of him until he locks up and leaves on his regular walks downtown. Alternatively, you could just chuck something into a container (e.g. a large chest), then keep throwing the chest away until you're out of sight, where you can then safely loot the items from it.

Ultima Online featured teleporting insta-kill guards that executed you about half a second after a successful theft. No penalty for those who immediately looted all your belongings (including the stolen item) from your dead body though.

In the Fallout series, getting caught stealing from a shopkeeper will usually make said shopkeeper (or the bodyguards that some of them retain for that very purpose) start shooting. And most of the time, if you shoot one person in town, the entire town becomes hostile. Except for three guys in Fallout 2 - Tubby and Flick in Den and Eldridge in New Reno, who can be killed with minimal consequences.

There's one case in Fallout 3, where you can shoot a merchant, loot a key (and a unique combat shotgun), and open a safe to get his entire store's wares. But to be fair, he's in the middle of a raider stronghold.

Fallout 3 is a particularly odd example. As normal they go ballistic if you touch their property, but they also give ominous warnings when you just glance at the merchandise. Even taking a piece of Vendor Trash from a trash can can set them off.

One of the loading screen hints warns explicitly that there is no institutionalized justice in the Capital Wasteland. Not only are there no courts or judges, there aren't even any jails. The threat of physical harm - until you run away or until you're dead - is literally the only way all but the largest post-war settlements can use to keep order, nevermind individual merchants.

Fallout: New Vegas has the Van Graffs of the Silver Rush, who not only have a number of well-armed guards wearing combat armor but make it a point to confiscate the weapons of customers to prevent them from trying a Ballistic Discount.

Even better, the Gun Runners have a bulletproof booth built around their Vendortron robot.

Also in New Vegas, just hanging around in an owned house too long may cause the owner to turn on you.

In one of the loading seen hints, the NCR's military in New Vegas don't like being in the role of "peace-keeper" so all crimes across the Mojave are typically punished by death. Even if you steal trash on the floor

In Wizardry 7PCs can steal from traders, but can be caught and then NPC gets angry (leaves or attacks with reinforcements). In Wizardry 8 traders can eventually figure out where their stuff gone even if they fail to catch PCs immediately (obvious protection from The Mighty Wand of Save/Load).

“Smiley's Shop” in Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land. This time you get two chances to return the item and if you take either of them nothing happens. Not to mention they actually warn you on the sign the security guards are very powerful. Ignore both warnings and you get attacked by a group of four enemies collectively much harder than even the final boss and that you normally fight one at a time, very rarely on the final level of the main game. Defeat them (which actually isn't as hard as it sounds) and you get to keep the item (not really a big deal), get a lot of experience and gold... and the shop closes forever.

Subverted in Temple Of Elemental Evil while Rannos Davl and Gremag are listed as CR 20 (designed to use 1/4 of a 20th level (the cap in the unmodded game is 10) party's resources on their own, only Iuz, who you are not meant to, but can, beat is higher) in the games bestiary they are only a decent challenge for a group of first level characters, particularly if you bring Elmo.

Averted in the vast majority of World of Warcraft, where most vendors can't be attacked, most things you can pick up in towns without talking to a vendor are free for the taking, and most enemies in the world don't care what you pick up on the ground near them. One place in the game that plays this trope straight, maybe the only place, is in the Grim Guzzler bar in the city of Blackrock Depths, an instance. Players can freely walk into the bar from a golem-manufacturing area, but the backdoor of the bar cannot be opened normally or lockpicked. There are several ways to open it, some of which fit this trope, including killing the bartender for the key (and he's definitely the toughest mob in the bar, and this will make some of the other mobs in the bar aggressive and might bring in city guards to "break up the fight") and getting one particular dwarf drunk, who will then get rowdy and break open the door and/or bring in the city guards on his own.

The part of this that actually fits is a platter of mugs of dark iron ale, and another with a roast boar that can both be picked up will trigger the bartender to attack you. And since he provides the booze, most of the bar will turn hostile and attack if you get too close.

Runescape tries to play this trope straight with the Thieving skill. If a NPC catches you picking their pocket, they will smack you, if a guard sees you steal from a market stall he will attack you, and some chests and doors are armed with traps. However, said smacks and traps do little damage and the guards are too weak to pose a threat past low levels, so it's not so much Shoplift And Die as Shoplift And Be Briefly Annoyed.

The old Apple II game Legacy Of The Ancients allowed you to steal from shopkeepers. If you did, though, you would get a few waves of city guards sent after you, and for a good portion of the game you were too weak to actually stand up to them. Of course, when you became powerful enough...

In Knights of the Old Republic, the player can loot virtually every room in an apartment block, but one contains a bounty hunter who tells your player in no uncertain terms to leave. If you take her stuff, she attacks and won't surrender until either she or everyone in your party die. She's a wanted criminal though, and you get money for killing her.

In Divine Divinity, stealing from shopkeepers will lower their attitude towards you, possibly making them refuse to trade with you in the future. (You can fix it by giving them free stuff.) If they get angry enough, they will call the guards. You can get away with stealing, however, if you've already killed all the guards in the area or if you just steal outside of the shopkeepers' line of sight.

Played fairly realistically in Spiderweb Software's Geneforge series. While shopkeepers can't be stolen from, a lot of the loot lying around is locked up and protected. The results of stealing from NPCs will vary. If one is not caught (there is no NPC nearby to see), there's no penalty. If one is caught stealing, reactions range from losing friendship points with a particular faction, to instant mob attack. Some faction alignment quests require the player character stealing from, and thereby completely alienating, a rival faction.

Exile/Avernum 3 had one particularly notable case as well—there was an NPC who had a series of one-way teleporters you could use for a fee, and one sidequest involved stealing a rare book from him. If you do, he'll act like you got away scott-free... but the next time you use any teleporter it'll instead drop you in a cave full of fire drakes, possibly on the other end of the continent from where you wanted to go. (This can be escaped from however).

In Baldur's Gate, there are only two things to do with the shoplifting/pickpocketing skill: either get it up to maximum and savescum relentlessly, or just never use it. This is because a failed theft or pickpocketing attempt will call down the wrath of every NPC within quite a wide radius, leading to your reputation dropping like a cartoon anvil and huge pointless pitched battles in the Athkatla government centre. In addition, stolen items can only be sold to very specific shopkeeps. (Don't ask us how they manage to discern a stolen generic longsword from the hundreds of thousands of others scattered around Amn.)

While not taking place in the game per se, OC Remix's "Satomi Tadashi remix from Persona showcases the shopkeeper ranting about teens invading his store in an exaggerated Japanese accent.

Wide Open Sandbox

Been doing a little gambling in a casino in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and you're a bit in the red? No problem, they'll give you time to pay them back...about five minutes real time. After that, the casino owner will send a hit squad of four guys with SMG's after you. Even if you happen to be the casino owner...

And when you kill them, they drop a lot of money. An interesting way to pay off your debt.

Saints Row had the First Born Loans company. Go ahead, take out a loan. But pay them back on time. If you didn't, they'd send two guys in a car with a knife. Then two guys with pistols. Then four with shotguns, etc. up to the helicopter with two assault rifle gunners (which would not stop spawning until you paid off the loan).

Saints Row 2 allows you to rob stores by holding a gun to the cashier and leading him or her to the safe with their money. After they do this, or if you take your gun off them for too long, the alarm sounds and you're immediately given 3 stars of police notoriety.

Saints Row: The Third also let you rob stores; it subverted this trope, however, due to the fact that you could rob stores you own (giving you notoriety), only to walk outside and reenter the store (which removes all notoriety because you own it.) But really, you're given so much money you'd never have to do this (other than just to be a dick).

In Way of the Samurai 2, it is possible to run off with items before paying. They won't chase you or harm you directly, but it does decrease your standing in the Karma Meter. You usually have two chances before the shopkeepers all over Amahara refuses to sell you anything. You then have to work for the townspeople to raise your standing all over again. If you're particularly unlucky, some random ronin will spot you as trouble and will try to take justice into his own hands...

In the original Way of the Samurai however, there is only one shopkeeper in the game (the Blacksmith) who you can choose not to pay and will be attacked by. What makes him different from most games though is you can kill him, but will deprive yourself of a vendor for the rest of the game. You do get a unique weapon though.

The third game has a variation on this: While the shopkeepers themselves will not attack you, their bodyguards will. An exception is the Legendary Merchant who is armed himself. The difficulty of the battles depend on who are you snitching from (both the Legendary Merchant and the guard for the Takatane Item Merchant are pretty bad; the rest of the bodyguards are quite decent), and the difficulty. Playing in Instant KillMode pretty much guarantees you to want to pay, or get the first strike in.

Other Media

In an episode of Drawn Together, Wooldoor steals a bag of candy from a store in the mall, prompting a security guard to threaten him into giving himself up by holding a woman at gunpoint. The woman's scream of "Run! He's gonna kill me no matter you do!" turns out to be true.

Non-video game (but still relevant) example: In the webcomic Kid Radd, taking place in a world of video game characters, easily angered invincible shopkeepers are used as human shields/weapons.

Another non-video game example is Ray Charles in the first Blues Brothers movie. Despite being blind, he just barely missed a shoplifter with his gun from across the room. The kid promptly left without trying that again.

Those caught stealing from The Gash clothing store on American Dad! are sent to a South American sweatshop for the rest of their lives.

Inverted bizarrely in the Pokémon episode "Here Comes the Squirtle Squad". When Ash arrives at the shop where he needs to buy a super potion, Team Rocket are holding the place up. Seconds after they leave with the demanded items, he enters and asks for the potion, only to find multiple guns pointed at him. Guns that everyone completely failed to use against Team Rocket, for some reason. They only relent when Officer Jenny arrives and tells them that he's not a Team Rocket member.

Real Life

Truth in Television in many places. Even if there is no obvious security personnel, many shops have guns right under the counter, making any would be robber have a very bad day.

Down in Mexico with its brutal drug cartels and occasional acts of domestic terrorism, some jewelry stores employ security guards armed with submachine guns. Attempting shoplifting and/or robbery at these shops would undoubtedly be a most effective way to commit suicide.

PROTIP: Robbing the local gunstore, police office or Bad-Guy Bar is a bad idea.

In other words, this trope is averted in Real Life {or at least, in America}, as killing someone for shoplifting in a case where you aren't acting in self-defense is murder.

As a rule of thumb, attempting to rob a sporting goods store, an army surplus store, a pawn shop, or a gun shop is not a good idea, doubly so if it's well known that the owner/proprietor is ex-military.

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